President Akufo-Addo has clarified that government during the peak of the pandemic did nothing dishonorable with the COVID funds allocated to tackle the health crisis head-on.
According to him, the economic consequences from the pandemic have been devastating and it is precisely because the economic fallout of the pandemic was so widespread and long lasting. He explained that the measures undertaken during the pandemic were necessary to save lives and also keep the country afloat.
President Akufo-Addo indicated that it is critical that government does not lose the confidence of the people, especially with regards to the fact that the crisis that they believed “we were all in together, was abused for personal gain”.
“… It is important to state clearly that the COVID-19 funds were not misused. It was government that asked for the COVID Funds to be audited and I can assure this House that nothing dishonorable was done with the COVID Funds. The responses from the ministries of health and finance on January 23rd and 25th, 2023, respectively, has sufficiently laid to rest the queries from the Auditor-General’s report and I believe any objective scrutiny of these statements from the health and finance ministries will justify this conclusion.”
President Akufo-Addo
Delivering the State of the Nation Address (SONA) in parliament today, March 8, 2023, President Akufo-Addo stated that he is grateful to government for seeing the wisdom in helping Ghanaians during the COVID season and further expressed his gratitude to all those who contributed their expertise, time and energy to the fight against the virus.
Additionally, he thanked those who contributed to the COVID-19 fund that was set up to help the country meet some of its expenditures.
Moreover, the President noted that the country’s currency has been buffeted, inflation rate has been very high and for the first time in history, debt exchange has become the language of everyday conversations.
Nonetheless, he expressed the need to make a departure from the usual format of messages on the state of the nation and concentrate predominantly on the economy. This, he explained, was to enable him also make some statements about the country’s agriculture, education, energy, health, infrastructure, mining, tourism, and security.
“This is not to belittle the contribution of the other sectors to the growth of our country. But I believe the exigencies of the moment justify the position I am taking, particularly, as all sector ministers continue to provide official updates on happenings in their respective sectors.”
President Akufo-Addo
Achievements of government
Commenting on the strides made in the health sector, President Akufo-Addo stated that during the pandemic, 58,041 health workers were empowered to supplement the existing health sector workforce. Subsequently, he revealed that all of them have been absorbed as permanent workers in the health sector.
“Frontline health workers were also granted 50% tax relief for the period. Was that something to regret? We should be forever grateful for the work that so many people did to keep all of us safe…”
President Akufo-Addo
Furthermore, President Akufo-Addo highlighted that the government took a deliberate decision to try and keep the inevitable disruptions across people’s lives down to a minimum in the education sector by opening schools and institutions as long as it was safe to do so. He explained that it was an expensive undertaking and not universally popular.
“But the fate of the prospect of a whole generation of our children losing irreplaceable years of education and the real likelihood of many of them dropping out of school forever, we took the brave decision to open the institutions. Even then, it is worth pointing out that the school year has not fully returned to the predictable pre-COVID calendar.”
President Akufo-Addo
Commenting on the current debt situation in the country, President Akufo-Addo revealed that government has not been reckless in borrowing and in spending. He emphasized that the debt government is currently servicing was not only contracted during the period of the current administration.
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